MRT: Abbott Headlines NYC GOP Gala; Could Eclipse Test TX Grid?; Election Vendor Hits TX Counties with Surcharge; SA Fire Union Seeks 33% Pay Bump over 3 Years
Here's What You Need to Know in Texas Today.
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BY: @MattMackowiak
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FRIDAY – 04/05/24
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TOP NEWS
“Led by Abbott, Republicans pounce on Eric Adams at New York fundraiser,” Politico's Irie Sentner -- “Thousands of miles from the southern border of Texas, where the flow of migrants into the country is defining elections up and down the ballot, national Republicans celebrated their electoral chances in November.
“Joe Biden has turned every state into a border state,” Rep. Elise Stefanik, a leading New York Republican, said at the state GOP’s annual gala Thursday night. “President Trump and Republicans will run, and we will win on securing our border, once and for all.”
Stefanik, who has been floated as a potential running mate for Donald Trump’s comeback presidential bid, joined high-profile members of her party in toasting their perceived success on border security as they gear up for the White House and midterm races this November.
She predicted immigration would be “the top issue in every swing district across the country” in an interview with POLITICO following the event — a who’s who of New York Republicans headlined by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott.
Abbott used his keynote speech to further twist the knife, taking direct aim at Democratic New York City Mayor Eric Adams over his handling of the migrant surge in his city.
“The complaining by Mayor Adams is nothing short [of] stunning. What he has is a tiny fraction of what Texas gets every day,” Abbott said from the ballroom of the ritzy Manhattan gala, just blocks from a hotel the Adams administration has turned into an intake center for many of the 185,000-plus migrants who have arrived in New York since 2022.
Tickets to the ritzy event, the state party’s first big gala in five years, cost $1,250 per person. Hundreds — including Republican National Committee Chair Michael Whatley — were in attendance.
Abbott and Adams have been at odds over the Texas governor’s decision to bus migrants from his state to other parts of the country — chief among them New York City. Adams, in turn, has admonished Abbott and sued 17 of the bus companies operating out of Texas for more than $700 million — getting results in one case.
Abbott’s speech underscored how central migration has become in New York House races. Democrats have successfully won elections pummeling the GOP over its stringent abortion bans in other parts of the country; in New York, Republicans are hoping to lure voters by promising to get tougher on the southern border.
Long Island Democratic Rep. Tom Suozzi, who defeated his Republican rival in a February special election, campaigned on fixing the border. Shortly after he was sworn in, Suozzi told reporters Democrats need to lean into the border.
“I knew people were pissed off about the chaos of the border,” Suozzi said. “And there was no way I was not going to talk about what I heard people talking about.”
During his 23-minute remarks, Abbott also slammed Adams for allowing “repeat criminals who go out and kill law enforcement officers like” the on-duty NYPD officer killed last month.
A retired police captain, Adams ran for office on a law-and-order platform and — despite his mixed record on curtailing crime and disorder — is a vehement defender of law enforcement officers.
Abbott’s presence was salt in the wound for the mayor, who has called the governor “morally bankrupt” and a “madman,” blamed him for exacerbating the migrant crisis that has cost the city over $4 billion, accused him of “using this crisis to hurt” cities with Black mayors and blasted him for treating people like “political pawns.”
“I’m going to offer him a stay in one of the HERRCs so he can see what he has created and understand we are treating people with dignity and respect that he should have shown,” Adams told reporters earlier Thursday, referring to the centers the city has built to provide shelter and other services for migrants.
As of January, Texas bussed over 37,100 migrants to New York City since August 2022, according to Abbott’s office. And he has no plans to stop, saying at the gala, “we are going to have to maintain this process until we get a new president this November who will secure the border for the United States of America.”
Abbott even blamed Adams for his plight — an influx of migrants relying on strained municipal resources in a city with liberal immigration policies." Politico
“Public blasts Texas agencies, regulators for poor communication and oversight at wildfire hearings,” Texas Tribune's Stephen Simpson -- “The Texas legislative committee investigating this year’s deadly Panhandle wildfires blasted state agencies and regulators for failing to communicate — and began hinting at possible legal changes it could propose as it wrapped up its work.
Thursday’s hearing marked the end of the Legislature’s three-day marathon of public hearings into the Smokehouse Creek fire and others that ripped through the Panhandle earlier this year, killing two. Hundreds of homes and ranches were also damaged or destroyed, and as many as 10,000 cattle were killed.
Among the witnesses this week were landowners, volunteer firefighters, utility companies and state agency officials. The committee, which includes three Republican House members and two local landowners, expects to publish its results on May 1.
State Rep. Ken King, a Canadian Republican and chair of the committee, said the Legislature’s work was difficult but necessary.
“You may not like the line of questions or the tone of questions, but we are here for answers,” King told representatives of the state’s regulatory agencies early Thursday. “It’s not a personal attack on you or your agencies, but it’s time for answers.”
The hearings — meant to help understand how the Smokehouse Creek fire burned more than 1 million acres and became the largest in state history — put on display the distrust between Panhandle residents and state agencies and industry. In many cases, the residents of the Panhandle are closer to Denver, Albuquerque, and Oklahoma City than Austin.
At times, the hearings seemed to be a long-awaited opportunity for locals to vent their frustrations that predate this year’s fires." Texas Tribune
STATE AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT
“Is the Texas power grid ready for the solar eclipse on Monday? Experts are optimistic,” Austin American-Statesman's Brandi D. Addison -- “As the solar eclipse stretches from one corner of the state to the opposite side, a large portion of the state will be plunged into darkness on Monday afternoon, at least for a few minutes.
Given Texas's leading position in renewable energy, there are concerns about the reliability of the state's electrical grid.
How is the 2024 solar eclipse different from the 2017 solar eclipse?
Although the grid held strong during the total eclipse in 2017, there are several key differences now: the upcoming event is more significant, and the state's solar power storage capacity is now twenty times greater than it was then.
This time, the rare phenomenon will be a couple of thousand miles closer to Earth than previous occurrences. It will be partially visible in all 48 contiguous states and marks the last total solar eclipse until August 23, 2044, according to NASA.
Most importantly, in 2017, the state had not yet experienced the devastating statewide power outage caused by Winter Storm Uri, which resulted in over 240 fatalities in 2021. In light of this tragedy, Texans now, inevitably become cautious when any event can potentially threaten the stability of the power grid.
How will the 2024 solar eclipse impact solar power in Texas?
According to the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, the agency has prepared for the total solar eclipse. Its website shows a timeline of events from March 28 through April 8.
Although the totality ribbon is only about 70 miles wide, its impact on solar arrays throughout the state will be significant, from 81% to 99% blockage, potentially reducing the state's solar power generation to just 7.6% of its maximum capacity.
Texas power grid will be impacted, but no problems expected
Thomas Overbye, director of the Smart Grid Center (SGC) and professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Texas A&M University, told TAMU Today the most important consideration is the long-established understanding of the event.
“The eclipse is a well-known, well-planned event,” Overbye said in an interview. “We can predict eclipses thousands of years in the future, so it wasn’t catching anyone by surprise. As a result, utility companies will ensure they have enough other generation available. The grid will definitely be impacted, but we’re not expecting any problems.”
While Texas certainly leads the country in the percentage of wind and solar on the grid, Overbye noted that all states with solar power will be affected by the eclipse, but once the event ends, solar generation will quickly return to normal." AAS
“Election vendor hits Texas counties with surcharge for software behind voter registration systems,” via AP -- “A California-based election services company is charging several large Texas counties tens of thousands of dollars in additional fees, sending election officials scrambling to pay the surcharges to preserve a crucial system that manages their voter registration.
The state’s primary runoff elections are next month.
Multiple Texas counties contract with VOTEC to provide software to maintain their voter registration system, but the company is now asking those jurisdictions to pay more. The San Diego firm did not return requests for comment from The Associated Press on Thursday.
The nonprofit news outlet Votebeat reported that VOTEC sent a message to the counties last month saying the “one-time” surcharge was because some counties were behind in payments and that additional problems with the company’s payroll and health insurance provider were causing financial pressure.
Daniel Ramos, executive director of the Office of Management and Budget in Harris County, which includes Houston and is the state’s most populous, said the county received new charges totaling $120,000. Ramos said the county would pay it soon because it relies heavily on the software.
Collin County, which includes Dallas’ suburbs, said it was charged $42,341.
In a statement, the Texas Secretary of State’s office said it was talking with the affected counties and advising them on what to do.
According to Votebeat, the firm is one of only three authorized to provide voter registration software in Texas and its software is used by 32 of the state’s counties. It also provides the software in Illinois and Nevada, but Votebeat said the firm has not issued surcharges in those states." AP
“San Antonio's fire union seeks 33% pay bump over three years,” San Antonio Express-News' Molly Smith -- “San Antonio’s fire union said it would agree to the city’s proposed annual raises of 4% — so long as that wage bump would come with an additional 21.7% increase to base pay.
That would total a 33.7% pay hike over three years.
“We want to look forward,” said Rick Poulson, chief negotiator for the San Antonio Professional Firefighters Association. “We don’t want to look back, and the proposed equity adjustment is not about re-litigating things that happened in the past, but at the same time we can’t ignore it.”
That past includes a six-year period when San Antonio Fire Department union employees went without raises during a contract negotiation stalemate that ultimately ended in arbitration in 2020. That contract expires this December, and the city wants to hammer out a new one before the City Council adopts the city’s next annual budget in September.
The union’s wage proposal, however, “is not affordable to the city and it is not realistic for us to be able to move forward with that proposal,” Deputy City Manager María Villagómez said during Thursday’s collective bargaining session.
“It feels to us that you are negotiating for what happened in the past 10 years,” Villagómez said. “We’re focusing on the future.”
Thursday was the first time the union publicly discussed the pay increases it’s seeking.
Last week, city negotiators proposed a five-year series of 4% annual raises — which San Antonio Professional Firefighters Association President Joe Jones said his members found “underwhelming.”
Agreeing to a salary increase likely will be a sticking point in negotiations for a new contract.
Villagómez told reporters after Thursday’s bargaining session that the city is “not going to make a lot of movement from where we are today.”
The union’s entire three-year pay proposal would cost $177.9 million more than the first three years of the city’s five-year proposal, according to the city.
That difference rises to $314.3 million when factoring in the union’s desired switch from a 24-hour on, 48-hour off schedule to a 24-hour on, 72-hour off one. That would require hiring 404 new department employees, city officials said.
The fire department’s current budget is $373.8 million. The city aims to keep police and fire spending below 66% of the city’s general fund budget so that public safety won’t crowd out general fund spending on other necessities, such as street work, libraries and senior centers.
Poulson said the union’s proposed 21.7% adjustment in base pay — before the annual 4% raises — would be phased in over three years. He said that figure would “restore” lost wages from October 2013 (when the previous contract expired) to this January on account of inflation. SAFD pay rose 10.37% over that time, while consumer prices have risen just over 32%, he said, citing Consumer Price Index figures.
The union has said higher pay is needed to attract and retain personnel. Entry-level firefighters earn a base salary of $56,172.
During Thursday’s session, Poulson highlighted how that pay trails entry-level pay in fire departments in Dallas, Arlington and Plano, in addition to smaller city departments.
A compensation analysis the PFM Consulting Group LLC performed for the city’s negotiating team shows that firefighters in Corpus Christi, Houston and El Paso earn a lower base salary than SAFD, while those in Austin, Dallas and Fort Worth receive higher pay base.
The city contends that its total cash compensation, which includes bonuses for certifications, a uniform allowance and scheduled overtime, raises San Antonio pay to $63,304, which puts it ahead of Austin. And when health care and pension benefits are accounted for, an entry-level SAFD fighter earns $92,402, according to the analysis — the highest of the six comparison cities." SAEN
2024
“David Covey: Meet the GOP activist taking on Dade Phelan,” Houston Chronicle's Cayla Harris -- “When David Covey decided to run against House Speaker Dade Phelan last summer, he called his friend and colleague, Waller County GOP Chair David Luther, who told him it was a terrible idea.
Covey and Luther had worked together on the Texas GOP’s executive committee, and Luther was honest. Running against Phelan — a five-term representative and prominent businessman in his Beaumont-area House district — was a bad political move, he remembers telling him, even though he believed Covey could make a good representative.
But Covey, a 34-year-old oil and gas consultant and former policy adviser to a far-right state senator, saw the race as a way back to statewide politics, Luther said. Phelan was vulnerable in a way he had never been before, facing fierce criticism from fellow Republicans for his chamber’s impeachment of Attorney General Ken Paxton, and this could be the only real chance to unseat him in an otherwise deep-red district.
“It’s the perfect time for him to make this move," Luther said. "He had the support of the company that he worked for. … He has a young family. I don’t fault him for taking this leap.”
Covey sent shockwaves across the state when he bested Phelan in the three-candidate March primary, forcing the speaker into a runoff election set for May 28 and positioning Phelan to become the first House speaker to lose his seat in more than 50 years.
The high-dollar, much-watched and often nasty contest is widely viewed as a referendum on Phelan, who has faced attacks from his party’s right flank for more than a year. The race has garnered national attention, and even former President Donald Trump has weighed in.
While Covey’s supporters have sometimes mentioned his experience as the Orange County GOP chairman or fire commissioner, his main appeal is simple: He’s not Phelan.
The speaker’s critics say Phelan is the face of the “establishment” that has ceded too much power to Democrats in Austin and has unfairly targeted Paxton, the embattled attorney general whom many Republicans praise for battling the Biden administration.
"Dade Phelan has failed to represent our party and our community,” Covey said in a statement. “I will be Southeast Texas’ representative in Austin, not Austin’s representative in Southeast Texas.”
He’s getting a boost from big-name Republicans rallying around him, including Trump, Paxton, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, Texas GOP Chair Matt Rinaldi. A national political action committee backed by conservative donors recently announced it would spend nearly $1 million against Phelan in the final stretch.
Phelan has pushed back on the attacks, saying his “record as the most conservative speaker in Texas history speaks for itself.” Lining up behind him are former Gov. Rick Perry and a majority of House Republicans, who see Phelan as a principled leader of the Legislature and a key player in its efforts to ban abortion, beef up border security and eliminate gun restrictions.
Gov. Greg Abbott, who has spent millions trying to oust House Republicans who oppose his private school voucher plan, has yet to weigh in on the race.
“We often talk about state elections becoming nationalized, but in this situation, we're talking about a local election with strong statewide overtones,” said Joshua Blank, the research director at the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin. “That's pretty unusual, given how small the electorate actually is.”
Primaries are typically low-turnout elections, where the most motivated and, often, extreme voters decide who will be the party nominee in November. Last month, about 34,000 people in Jasper, Jefferson and Orange counties turned out to cast a ballot, and 46% of them voted for Covey. Phelan trailed at 43%.
The runoff may have an even lower turnout rate but with higher stakes.
‘If we won’t do it, who will?’
Covey has lived in Texas his entire life, he said, and for the last 28 years has been in Orange, the easternmost city in the state that borders Louisiana. At work, he advises oil refineries on fluid distribution; at home, he showcases his family life in YouTube videos, offering affordable date night tips and parenting advice with his wife, Esther.
He said his conservative beliefs stem from his Christian faith and “the ideals on which our nation was founded — freedom, liberty and personal responsibility.” Growing up in a family of 10, Covey said he and his siblings tagged along with his parents to local conventions.
Now, politics is a bit of a family affair: One of Covey’s seven siblings, Jonathan Covey, works as the director of policy for Texas Values, an influential right-wing nonprofit that lobbies the Legislature to “preserve and advance a culture of family values in the state of Texas.”
Covey became increasingly active in local politics as he aged, working his way up to the executive committee of the Texas GOP. He even launched a bid to lead the state party in 2021, after then-Chair Allen West resigned to challenge Abbott. Rinaldi ultimately won, but Covey came in second and nearly forced a runoff.
The defeat didn’t push him out of politics. He continued to head the Texas Republican County Chairmen’s Association, which just last year gave Phelan the inaugural “254 Award” for his commitment to supporting down-ballot candidates.
Covey also published a book in 2021 called “Hometown Politics,” which makes the case that conservatives should focus on local races first if they want to change national politics, and God should be central to that effort.
Covey’s campaign declined to make him available for an interview. In a written statement, he said he ultimately decided to run against Phelan after talking to residents, and “the resounding sentiment around the district was frustration with Dade Phelan’s inaccessibility and his failure to prioritize conservative legislation.”
“These were feelings that my family and I had been experiencing as well,” Covey said. “After a lot of discussion and prayer with my family, we decided I should run. My wife put it perfectly — ‘If we won’t do it, who will?’”
Covey’s campaign platform emphasizes border and election security as top concerns, but he has provided few specifics on legislative priorities.
Since joining the race, Covey’s campaign has been bankrolled almost entirely by West Texas oil billionaires Tim Dunn and Farris Wilks, whose far-right PACs — at first Defend Texas Liberty and now Texans United for a Conservative Majority — have donated about half a million dollars.
Phelan has outraised Covey, with much of his $5.8 million haul coming from the Republican State Leadership Committee and the PAC that Las Vegas Sands launched in 2022 to help its efforts to legalize casino gambling in Texas.
Campaign attacks
On the campaign trail, Phelan has painted Covey as a liar and a pawn of Dunn and Wilks. In February, Phelan released an ad called “Reject Covey’s Lies,” which included the accusation that Covey had falsely presented himself as an attorney on Texas Ethics Commission filings.
Covey said he has not personally claimed he is an attorney. He said he earned his juris doctor from a virtual California school “for the knowledge and experience,” and did not take the bar exam.
Phelan’s campaign announced on Wednesday that the speaker had also accepted an invitation from a local TV station to debate on May 7, but Covey had not yet committed.
“David Covey is a handpicked puppet of West Texas billionaires hellbent on buying Southeast Texas for themselves,” Phelan said in an email. “Voters deserve to know who the candidates truly are, but my opponent refuses to debate the issues and sticks to empty rhetoric.”
Covey accused Phelan of refusing to debate up until now and trying to keep the May 7 debate closed to the public. His campaign said it received the invitation to debate on Monday, and “we are reviewing our schedule and the terms to ensure it is open to the public.”
But Phelan is not the only person who has taken issue with Covey. Morgan Cisneros Graham, a member of the state Republican Party’s executive committee who has worked with Covey, said the candidate “goes whichever direction the wind blows.”
She said Covey used to tell her he believed in former President Ronald Reagan’s so-called 11th commandment: “Thou shalt not speak ill of any fellow Republican.”
“He has aligned himself with the same people he claimed to be his antithesis for years,” Graham said.
Covey declined to address her comments directly but said Phelan “has lost the right to call himself a Republican.” In February, the state Republican party censured Phelan, a snub that will allow the organization to campaign against him.
Luther, the current president of the Texas Republican County Chairmen’s Association, said many of Phelan’s critics are spreading “baseless lies” or just don’t understand how the Legislature works. The TRCCA is not taking a position in the race, and Luther made clear he is only speaking on behalf of himself, but he noted that Phelan has been a supporter of his organization both personally and financially.
As much as he dislikes the mudslinging, Luther said he doesn’t blame Covey for running a campaign attacking Phelan. It may very well be the only way to take down the speaker, who holds the most powerful position in the lower chamber, he said.
“I don't have anything negative to say about Covey as far as taking the advice he’s taken, because that's part of being in a campaign,” Luther said. “But if it were me, I would have not done that.”" Houston Chronicle
“Ted Cruz podcast ad money flows to super PAC backing his reelection,” Dallas Morning News' Joseph Morton -- “A super PAC focused on getting U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz reelected has received hundreds of thousands of dollars tied to advertising revenue from Cruz’s “Verdict” podcast, an unusual campaign finance arrangement that raises legal questions.
Public scrutiny of the payments could prompt advertisers to follow BP America Inc.’s lead and redirect their business to avoid indirectly supporting the Texas Republican’s effort to win a third six-year term.
Contacted by The Dallas Morning News, BP America, based in Cruz’s hometown of Houston, said it was unaware that ad revenue from the podcast was flowing to a pro-Cruz organization.
“We purchase advertising on iHeart based on the potential audience and do not specify by podcasts,” BP America spokesperson Ross Parman said. “We were never informed that media spend was going directly to a super PAC and have instructed iHeart to remove our messages from any podcasts that direct advertising revenue to campaigns, PACs or political parties.”
Since March 2023, the pro-Cruz Truth and Courage PAC has received a series of increasingly larger payments from iHeartMedia Management Services Inc. that total more than $630,000.
Rachel Nelson, spokesperson for iHeart subsidiary Premiere Networks, said in a statement that Cruz volunteers his time to host the podcast and isn’t compensated for it.
Nelson said Premiere sells advertising time for “Verdict,” as it does for other podcasts, and the money being directed to the Truth and Courage PAC is “associated with those advertising sales.”
Nelson referred additional questions to the PAC, which does not provide contact information on its website. A committee campaign finance filing includes an email address, but inquiries sent to it were not answered.
The PAC has supported various Republican candidates in the past, including former Dallas Cowboys running back Herschel Walker in his failed 2022 bid for a U.S. Senate seat in Georgia.
Its website is now dominated by photos and press releases boosting Cruz and attacking his opponent in the November election, U.S. Rep. Colin Allred, D-Dallas.
“Truth and Courage PAC’s focus is ensuring that Ted Cruz is re-elected to the United States Senate in 2024,” according to the site.
In response to questions about the podcast and the financial arrangements surrounding it, the Cruz campaign provided a written statement characterizing all of the attention as “lazy attacks” by news outlets and Democrats in an election year.
“Senator Cruz appears on Verdict three times a week for free. He does this to pull back the veil on the corrupt inner workings of Washington — none of which ever get fairly covered,” according to the statement. “How convenient that the mainstream media and the cogs in the machine of the Biden-Pelosi Democrat Party want this to stop.”
The campaign did not say who decided podcast advertising revenue should be directed to the PAC.
Growing the podcast
The podcast started during former President Donald Trump’s first impeachment trial in early 2020, with Cruz offering his take on those proceedings and sharing behind-the-scenes observations.
It was a hit and has continued to attract a significant audience for Cruz’s conservative perspective, sprinkled with occasional sports banter and pop culture references.
The senator announced the move to iHeart in 2022, saying at the time that it was a “big damn deal” to partner with the No. 1 syndicator of U.S. radio programing. He credited the network with helping make the career of conservative giant Rush Limbaugh.
Recent “Verdict” episodes have included advertisements for large companies with well-known brands: BP, Safeway, Consumer Cellular, Carvana, Lexus and UberEats among them." DMN
EXTRA POINTS
Last night's Texas sports scores:
> NBA: Warriors 133, Rockets 110 Houston Chronicle
> NBA: Mavericks 109, Hawks 95 DMN
Tonight's Texas sports schedule:
> 7pm: NBA: Spurs at Pelicans
> 7pm: NBA: Heat at Rockets
> 7pm: NBA: Warriors at Mavericks
> 7:05pm: MLB: Astros at Rangers
DALLAS COWBOYS: Cowlishaw: “Cowboys' most puzzling offseason offers one vague ray of hope" DMN
TEXAS OPEN: “Akshay Bhatia opens with a 63 to lead Texas Open by 3, Rory McIlroy is 6 back" AP